


it's not the end, i'll see your face again (goodbyes are bittersweet)

by LadyAlice101



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark!Dany, F/M, Political!Jon, s8e01 compliant, s8e02 speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-16 09:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18518941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAlice101/pseuds/LadyAlice101
Summary: “He died without ever telling me,” Jon says, “your Lady Mother died without ever knowing. I could have died without ever knowing. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you any of this earlier but I – I can’t go to my grave with you not knowing the truth, with you thinking I’d betrayed you.”-The Great War is here. Jon has a confession he needs to make.8x02 spec. Now extended to include the kidnap plot!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> welp. this one speaks for itself tbh. 
> 
> unbeta'd

Daenerys has been in a foul mood since Jaime Lannister’s trial, and Jon just doesn’t have the temperament to deal with it right now.

“Your sister shouldn’t have interrupted,” Daenerys is saying, her tone dark. She’s switching tactics, because her lamentations on Jaime’s pardon have not hitherto moved him in any way.

He wonders at which point he had given himself away, at which point she had realized that his family is his weak point. Perhaps she hasn’t, because she isn’t looking at him; her eyes are fixed over his shoulder, staring up from the courtyard and to the balustrade. Jon is sure that, if he turns, he will see long red hair, will see the visage of his pretty Sansa.

Sister. He means sister.

“She’s treading on thin ice, Jon Snow,” Daenerys says, her eyes sliding to his.

 _Don’t talk to me about the dangers of winter,_ Jon thinks, his heart shadowed.

“I’ll talk to her,” he promises instead.

A commotion by the gates turns his attention from her.

“She won’t -,” he tries to continue.

“Riders!” he hears one of the guards shout.

Jon’s speech falters completely, his attention stolen.

“Jon,” he faintly hears Daenerys demand, and then Davos’ feeble attempts to distract the temperamental Queen.

Jon strides to the gates. “How many?” he demands, his heart seizing in fear. Surely this can’t be it. He had expected more time to prepare, more time to figure things out, more time to –

“About ten!” Comes the reply.

His brow furrows. Ten? That doesn’t make sense. A wight scouting party wouldn’t have so little, but there’s no Lord’s that would be still coming, certainly none with so little people.

“They bear the Umber sigil!” Someone calls down.

“Open the gates,” Jon commands.

An Umber party of ten? Something is wrong. Jon wants to know what.

The doors creak open slowly, the riders bearing down fast.

Davos and Daenerys come to stand either side of him, but he can’t focus on them.

The approaching party get closer, and Jon blinks in shock.

“Tormund?” he demands, though the other man can’t hear him.

Davos grumbles in disbelief.

“He was at the Wall, wasn’t he?” Daenerys asks. Jon isn’t in the mood to decipher her tone.

Jon catches of sight of Edd and Beric and suddenly the fear in the veins lodges heavily in his gut.

Tormund races through the gates, his horse kicking up dirt and snow, and stops in front of Jon. He pushes from the saddle, a stable hand taking the reigns.

“You’re okay?” Jon asks, clasping a hand on Tormund’s shoulder.

There’s a tightness to the other man’s face, even as he replies in jest. “Takes more than the Wall coming down to kill this fucker.”

Tormund doesn’t laugh, and neither does Jon.

“How long have we got?” Jon asks, because Tormund clearly knows something terrible.

Tormund’s eyes lift to the sky. “Until nightfall,” he says. Jon inhales sharply. “Hours.”

“Jon,” Daenerys calls as Jon steps away from Tormund slowly.

Hours.

He has to – he has to - . . .

He spins on his heel. “Davos, start getting everyone prepared,” he says sharply. “You know what to do. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

“Where are you going?” Daenerys says harshly.

His heart thuds in his chest. She’s no longer standing above them, instead disappeared presumably inside the castle. He needs to go, he has to find her immediately, but he can’t anger Daenerys. Not now.

“Ill be back,” he promises, though it isn’t much. His skin itches with his real desire. “Just – I’ll meet you in the sky.”

He hopes the promise of riding a dragon alongside her will calm her nerves for now. The reminder is enough to placate her, if her ferocious smile is enough to go by.

That was the smile that had made him decide he could never trust her.

Jon says nothing more and takes into a run inside the castle. He can’t be sure of where she’ll be but he needs to hurry. His feet carry him through the halls of Winterfell, their pounding echoing off the walls. In a matter of minutes he’s at her solar.

“Sansa!”

His fists slap fiercely against the wood.

The door pulls open, Sansa’s bewildered face revealed to him.

“What’s happened?” she asks.

“The Dead,” he gasps, rushing inside, pulling the door closed behind him. “They’re here.”

Her face drains of colour.

“What -,” she pauses, her tongue darting out to wet her lips, and he see’s her allow herself a moment of panic, and then her expression shutters and it’s the Lady of Winterfell that greets him. “What are you doing here, then?”

He steps forward to grasp her hands.

“We don’t have much time,” he rushes out, “but I have to tell you things. Important things.”

She blinks, but nods her head once. It’s all the encouragement he needs.

“I didn’t physically bend the knee,” he says first, because this probably sums it up the most coherently and he’s spent a lot of time wondering how, wondering when, to confess this secret to her. “She thinks because I said it, it’s binding. I bed her because I was terrified that it hadn’t been enough, that I hadn’t done enough. That she would turn south at the first opportunity, the first sign that Cersei was taking back land. I thought that if she were emotionally involved, she would be more invested.”

Her lips are pursed. Like always, though, she grasps the situation before he can fumble out more words, and asks the most important question.

“And what was your plan for after?”

He shakes his head. “Whatever it takes to keep you and the North safe.”

She steps away from him and turns to stare into her fire. He gives her this time, because he knows how acutely betrayed she must have felt, him riding in alongside Daenerys. He won’t interrupt her processing this new information, because he fears she would turn her ire on him, and he can’t handle that right now.

Her anger has been pointed and barbed against him for days, and he longs to hear something sweeter fall from her lips.

Oh, how naïve he had been to just hope that she could have blind faith in him.

“Why are you telling me now?”

He doesn’t know how to answer her

She turns to him, eyes sharp. _Why didn’t you tell me when you revealed father’s secret_ , she seems to scream.

The reminder of Ned is what pulls his thoughts into something tangible.

“The last time I saw fath – your fath - Lord Stark-,” he fumbles through the titles, wincing at Sansa’s keen eyes, “the last time I saw him, he told me that when we met each other again, he would tell me the truth about my mother.”

Sansa wets her lips, her hands clasped tight in front of her.

“He died without ever telling me,” Jon says, “your Lady Mother died without ever knowing. I could have died without ever knowing. If you d-died, if I die, I will not have it be without you knowing.”

Her eyes squeeze shut and her face pinches into grief, and he doesn’t know which of it has caused such sorrow, only that his heart aches, too.

He wishes to soothe it, but he knows not how.

Jon steps towards her, and she doesn’t move, so he takes the extra steps and takes her arms in his hands.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you any of this earlier but I – I can’t go to my grave with you not knowing the truth, with you thinking I’d betrayed you.”

“I – Jon, I -.” She is rendered completely speechless.

The sound of a dragon screeching echoes high above them.

“I have to go,” he says, reluctantly, because if he doesn’t he thinks he could let Winterfell burn down around them if he could just take Sansa in his arms, like a husband takes a wife.

But he wouldn’t stay, not really, because then she would burn too, and he already knows what he’s capable of when it comes to protecting her.

Tears fill her eyes and then spill over in the next second.

“Please,” she whispers, “ _please_ come back to me. I don’t – I can’t – _please,_ Jon.”

She reaches out with blind hands, fingers digging into his jerkin.

He doesn’t know who initiates, all he knows is that one second she’s pulling him towards her and the next his lips are on hers – or perhaps hers are on his - in a passionate embrace. There is desire here, and lust, and it tastes like forbidden fruit, made sweet by the fact that it is not as forbidden as he once feared. The condemnation of the gods is something they need not worry about, not anymore.

Now they are only threatened by Targaryen madness, all the more terrifying because madness does not come like he feared. It is pretty lips spewing ignited words, it is self-aggrandizement conflated with liberation.

Sansa has faced this type of madness before, and she remains amongst the living. He will keep it that way, no matter the cost.

There is tongue and teeth between them, the line of her body pressed entirely against his, their kiss a dance of wolves. His hands are clawed into her waist and her fingers have dug painfully into his hair.

Jon allows himself a moment to imagine letting this get away from him, letting himself indulge in his dark fantasies. The fantasy he conjures now comes unbidden and is painted across his eyelids as sure as the feel of her lips against his; of pushing her back against the wall, rucking her skirts up and hooking her thighs around his waist, of their skin slicking with sweat as he drove up into her; or maybe he would spin them around, would knock the table clear and spread her out on it, would watch her breasts bounce in time with his thrusts.

Fire consumes him, burns him, licks up his lips just like she does. His heart beats loudly in his chest, tattooing her name against his ribs. Sansa. Sansa.

“ _Sansa._ ”

And yet, it is sweet.

She breaks from him first, holding his head between her hands and pressing fierce kisses over his face.

“Please,” she keeps repeating, “please, please, please.”

She is no longer begging to him, but praying to the gods.

Still, he makes a promise he has no business making. “Aye, I’ll come back to you.”

Sansa’s fingers drop from his face and to his shoulders, her eyes following her own movements as she smoothens them over the furs perched atop there, over and over again.

“Will you marry me?” Her gaze lifts to him, her voice trembling. “When you come back?”

And if he has already made a promise that he shouldn’t, then he certainly has no place to make this one. He wants to, gods does he want to, but if he wouldn’t let her burn for the chance to feel her tight around him, then he wouldn’t let Sansa take Daenerys’ wrath for the chance to marry her.

She must be able to tell from the look on his face what he’s going to say, because her eyes close and she presses her forehead against his.

“Would you say it anyway?”

Saying it will only it make it harder for the both of them, but he can’t deny her.

“When this is all over,” he says, quietly, leaning forward to press another kiss to her lips, “I’ll marry you.”

She doesn’t ask him to promise, but he keeps the kiss she gives him locked in a hidden part of his heart, lodged between Ygritte dying in his arms and the feeling of a cold knife sliding between his ribs. The useless part. The part that tries to compel him to choose love over duty.

Overhead, a dragon roars.

He breathes her in, one last time, the rose oil she uses in her baths filling him with determination. He’s sought this scent since he returned, the smell of home, the smell he’d dreamt of when he was on Dragonstone, and he’d not been able to find it. Not until now.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because this might be his last ever opportunity to express his regret to her.

“I understand.”

He doesn’t kiss her again, even though he so desperately desires that brand. Instead, he steps out of the circle of her arms and wretches the door open.

The masochistic fool that he is, he turns back to see her, standing, watching him. Her cool mask has slotted back in to place, though her lips are swollen from his kiss.

“Get to the crypts,” he says, in a voice that he doesn’t recognize. “Don’t waste any time.”

He leaves her behind.

He will do what his true father never could, what the man who raised him taught him; he will be the Targaryen that leaves behind his Stark love for the good of the realm.

 

* * *

 

In a days’ time, as the battle continues to wage, as Jon gives the order to evacuate Winterfell, the solider he’d sent to the crypts stumbles back, eyes wide with fear.

“Spit it out, man!” Jon shouts as the fire cracks through the castle and ash snows down around them. Jon grabs the man by the top of his armour and pulls him towards him. “Are they out? Is the Lady of Winterfell safe?”

The man trembles, handing him a note as Daenerys’ shouts over to him to stop worrying about it, to climb back atop the dragons with her and finish the fight.

Jon opens the note.

The Lannister sigil at the end makes his skin heat, makes it burn hotter that the dragon flames do.

Arya appears in front of him.

“Tyrion has kidnapped Sansa, taken her to Cersei.”

Arya bares her teeth, murderous, and Jon imagines his own expression mirrors it.

“Jon!” Daenerys shouts.

Jon climbs atop Rhaegal with no encouragement from Arya, who is blinded by fury with Cersei’s gall, and with no heed to Daenerys’ warnings that if he leaves her behind she won’t honour their alliance.

Instead, he takes to the skies, his duty falling away from him like unbound shackles.

This time, for the first time, he chooses love.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ngl I don’t address like 17 major plot points bc honestly this was supposed to be a one shot but the particulars of jon ‘resucing’ sansa from cersei intrigue me and so that’s just where we’re at

Jon set’s Rhaegal down in Harrenhal, where he can burn only what is already burnt.

He steals a horse from the nearest pub and rides into King’s Landing, unseen during the night.

The Red Keep is a viperous place, even in it’s sleep, and once he has Sansa he will never again set foot in the castle; in the city at all, if he can help it.

Queen Cersei sits perched atop her throne, hands resting either side of her like claws. She’s completely at ease, as she should be. She has all the cards here.

Sansa sits at her feet, her neck collared and her eyes defiant.

Jon sets his eyes on her and doesn’t lift them until he reaches the steps to the dais and Cersei’s monstrous guard steps forward, his sword glinting as it scraps from its sheath.

“The King in the North,” Cersei greets, her voice cool, just like he remembers. There’s a dangerous smile on her face. It reminds him of Daenerys. “The fighting done so soon, is it? My dear little dove tells me it still raged onwards when she left.”

There is unconcealed fury in his voice when he spits, “When you took her, you mean.”

Cersei looks down at him, her face devoid. A smile starts to spread, thin and dangerous like her heart, and then she laughs with delight. “Oh, this is just too sweet! Did you know, Sansa dear?”

Sansa lifts her gaze from Jon and to the supposed Queen. “Know what, my Queen?” she asks demurely.

Jon has not seen her like this. In their own home, she was never afraid to scathingly bare the Dragon Queen for all to see.

“No need to play that way with my, my darling, I know your cunning. We are women, after all.” Cersei lifts her eyes back to him, a long finger tapping against the swords of her throne, the sound of her ring clinking through the hall. Her gaze is too perceptive. In a rush, all at once, he understands why Sansa’s attention consistently drew south. “Did you know that your brother reciprocated your love?”

“My brother?” Sansa asks, her tongue darting out to wet her lips. Oh, oh will she bare the truth for Cersei? Will she use his sire to inspire fear in the other woman?

No. No, Cersei isn’t one to be afraid of something like that.

“Oh, I know you two weren’t very close growing up, but surely the semantics of brother or half brother will matter little to the eyes of the small fold or the gods.”

And she’s so very right. Jon revels in her smirk, in this victory she thinks she has, because her gloat affects him so little. But he doesn’t let it show on his face, he draws on the lessons that his time spent with Daenerys has taught him, employs the same tactic that Sansa does.

“Truly, Jon Snow,” Cersei continues, “I was surprised to see that this particular lesson was something our dearest Sansa took to heart. I would have thought brother-fucking beneath the honorable Starks. How delightful to be proven wrong.”

Cersei stands, her mood soured and her face darkening. “You don’t have a bargaining chip, you idiotic fool. I could have my Mountain rape your pretty sister-love right here, in front of you, or I could slit her sweet neck with my own dagger, and you could do nothing stop me. So why are you here?”

“Go, Jon,” Sansa demands softly, “I’ll be fine.”

“Adorable.” Cersei’s lip curls. “I would encourage you to listen.”

“I would bring dragon fire down around you,” he says instead.

Cersei doesn’t react with fear, like he may have hoped. She doesn’t react with much of anything, instead her eyes wandering around the room. Finally, they end up back on him, and there is a sick kind of pleasure on her face when she looks upon him.

“I find myself surprised that I need remind you that if you burn the Keep you burn her too.”

And that, too, is the truth. It’s near on half the reason he’d set Rhaegal down so far away.

“And if you don’t stop threatening me, Jon Snow, I’ll burn her anyway.”

Jon pictures wrapping his bare hands around her throat, of strangling the life from her as she sits upon her Iron Throne, the shape of his fingers bruised on her delicate neck forevermore. He pictures drawing Longclaw and watching the Mountain’s head tumble down the stairs and coming to stop in the middle of the court; would he still bleed?

Then he looks down at Sansa, his Sansa, and he knows he doesn’t ever want her to see him like that. That thought had been enough to pull him from crushing Ramsey Bolton’s head under his fists, and it stops him now.

“Which would be rather unfortunate,” Cersei continues, “because I do have some poetic plans in place for my dove.”

Jon steps forward dangerously, his hand dropping to Longclaw.

“Ser Gregor.”

The Mountain heeds Cersei’s words and instead of loping Jon’s head off, like he obviously intended, he turns from Jon and yanks Sansa up by the chain connected to her neck, brandishing his sword before her throat.

“No, no!” Desperation bubbles from his chest and into his voice and Cersei’s answering smirk makes fear ice his veins. But she already knows he’s in love with Sansa. He’s not revealed devotion; she already knew he harboured it.

“I tell you what, bastard, I’ll make you a deal.”

Jon’s fury burns as he stares at Cersei.

“You bring me back the Dragon Queen’s head, and I’ll let you take Sansa back North. You bring the heads of her dragons, too, I’ll also let you remain King in the North.”

His chest rumbles with a growl. Sansa shakes her head, her gaze imploring him to not listen, to not take the deal.

And he knows that Cersei likely won’t keep her end of the bargain, but he doesn’t know what else to do. He hadn’t planned to kill Daenerys, he’s always hoped that they would be able to sort out their differences, that he might be able to maneuver her without too much damage, but he’s always known her death might be a possibility.

And now he’s being given a very clear ultimatum: Sansa or Daenerys.

He doesn’t even have to think about it.

It’s Sansa. It’s always been Sansa.

Jon’s eyes lift to Cersei. “I’ll bring you her head.”

 

* * *

 

 

The procession of Northmen is a sad and dreary sight, but there are more than he might have assumed. He can see a thick plume of smoke on the horizon. Winterfell, he assumes.

Still, they must have won.

Drogon is nowhere to be seen.

When Rhaegal thunders down to earth, it feels as though anyone important rushes over to him. Jon hardens his heart, letting it ice over, letting only a spark of fury melt a tiny corner of it.

Arya pushes her way forward, shoving aside anyone and everyone.

Her face, her terrified, hopeful face, is the only thing that could have the power to break through his lies. But there are more important things than sparing her a week of grief and mourning.

“She’s not here,” Arya states, her eyes sweeping over Rhaegal, hoping beyond hope that she might spot flaming hair. Jon knows the feeling.

“She’s dead.”

“No,” Arya breathes. “No, no, no, no. You – how could you -?”

She flies to him, shoving his chest so hard he stumbles.

“How could you! You and your stupid Dragon Queen – if you’d just – you were supposed to protect her!”

He takes her fists easily, letting her punish him. Sansa may not be dead, but her words are still true. He deserves her anger.

Arya slumps in his arms. He presses a hard kiss to her forehead. His eyes lift to seek out Daenerys.

Gendry comes forward as Arya pulls from him. She swipes her face and her gaze hardens on him. Sansa’s death would be something she couldn’t forgive him for, he realizes. He hopes she’ll be able to forgive him for lying about it.

Arya turns from him and doesn’t look back as she stalks through a quiet crowd.

Daenerys approaches him next.

There’s no empathy on her face. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she says though he knows she isn’t. There’s no love lost between she and Sansa, and obviously she can’t find it within herself to feel sorry for him. It just makes this easier. “We will avenge her.”

“Where’s Drogon?” Jon asks.

Daenerys’ face crumples. “He died fighting Viserion.”

Jon can’t even pull a semblance of pity out as he turns to Rhaegal. Is Rhaegal loyal to him or to Daenerys, he wonders.

At least now he won’t have to worry about Drogon’s vengeance, or about how to kill him.

“I’m flying back to the Keep tonight. I’m going to kill Cersei myself.” This is not a lie. “I want you to come with me. I want you to take the Throne afterwards.”

Satisfaction makes Daenerys’ lips tilt up into a smile. She nods once.

“Good. Lets go.”

“ _Now?”_ Daenerys asks.

“Davos!” Jon barks. The older man scurries to Jon’s side, eyes wide. Jon wonders what he must look like. He makes a concerted effort to soften his tone. “Keep marching south to the Twins. Daenerys and I are going to take King’s Landing. I’ll be back in two days.”

“ _Jon,_ ” Davos implores, a disapproving lilt to his tone.

“Two days,” Jon says firmly, then takes Daenerys by the arm to drag her to Rhaegal.

She grips her arm from his grip. “Don’t you dare touch me like that again.”

He takes her words to heart, because it is not just her that he’s livid with and she’s a dangerous foe without bearing the brunt of his raging anger. He doesn’t ever remember being this furious. This is a Targaryen rage, he thinks. This is a deep, red wrath that culminated in his House’s words.

_Fire and blood._

Rhaegal roars, loud, deafening, the earth shaking.

Jon climbs atop first, Daenerys following suit. They take to the skies.

Jon doesn’t regret it at all.

 

* * *

 

The Keep is quieter than it had been two days ago.

His steps thunder through the halls, but no one greets him. Daenerys walks behind him, trying to keep up with him and maintain her powerful status, but her self-righteousness is no match to his ferocity.

The doors to the Throne room crack open beneath his hands.

He had expected to find a similar scene to what he had two days ago; Sansa bound and chained, Cersei sitting atop her Throne, championing her victory.

Instead, Sansa stands before the Iron Throne, her pale dress stained with red, her hands dripping with blood, a dagger hanging from her fingers.

Cersei lies before her, her dead eyes open and unseeing.

The Mountain is in pieces beside her. He doesn’t bleed.

“You came back,” Sansa says, her voice breaking like she can’t believe it.

“Sansa,” he gasps. “What did you _do_?”

“I thought that you -,” she hiccups a sob, the dagger clattering to the ground. “I thought that you wouldn’t come back. So I – I . . .”

Jon rushes to her. He gathers her in his arms and she collapses there, grief-stricken sobs making her body heave.

“ _Jon,_ ” he hears Daenerys call, her voice the hardest he’s ever heard it. All at once, Sansa’s sobs stop, her sorrow pulled back inside her. “What is the meaning of this?”

Against his throat, Sansa whispers, “You brought her?”

“I brought her head,” he replies, chest rumbling against her with those dark words. He hadn’t the heart to kill the woman himself, not yet, not least because he’s a Stark and Stark’s don’t murder for their own betterment.

Sansa lifts her head from him, her eyes meeting Daenerys’ across the court. Her blood soaked hands glisten as they slide around his torso.

“If you don’t explain to me what’s going on, I’ll rain fire on this hell-bound city.”

Sansa’s entire body stiffens, but Jon doesn’t heed Daenerys threat. She can’t control Rhaegal from down here, not like she could Drogon. She couldn’t rain dragon fire if her life depended on it.

And it does.

“What will you do with her?” Sansa asks. He wonders if Daenerys heard what she said.

“I don’t want to be King,” Jon warns.

Sansa looks down to Cersei’s body, then her sheened hands. “We don’t always get what we want.”

Daenerys stalks towards them as they continue to weigh her future in their hands. They are not gods, Jon thinks, and they should not have this power. But if they don’t wield it now, what price would they pay?

How does one value life, Jon wonders. How can he look upon Daenerys and decide that she is too much of threat, decide that she must give her life now so that he and Sansa can have theirs?

It will haunt him; will pervade his dreams, will rot his gut, it will punish him from this day forth, as every death before has done.

But Sansa is worth more than his soul.

He doesn’t even have to choose.

He stands from the steps of the dais, and Daenerys’ march falters. There is fear there, now, like there hasn’t been before. It makes her lash out.

“Are you betraying me?” she demands. “I burn those who betray me. I would burn you, too, no matter who you are to me.”

“You can’t burn a dragon.”

Jon doesn’t know if this is true. Daenerys is the Unburnt, not him; he feels he is just as susceptible to dragonfire as any other man.

Daenerys’ eyes are blown in fear. Longclaw is heavy in his hand as he brandishes it.

“Jon.”

Sansa’s soft voice stops him immediately. She doesn’t say anything more for a moment, and then her words tumble from her, unstoppable like the thaw of Winter: “If we – what if we split the Kingdoms? – We’ll just – the North, and others can – the other kingdoms. We can imprison her – and have a jury – the other rulers?”

Her sentences are muddled, but he gets the gist. They’ll split the Kingdoms to their original domains, and Jon and Sansa will rule the North, and the other Great Houses will take their own Kingdoms; they’ll organise a trial for Daenerys, together.

Jon lets Longclaw slip from his hands. It’s clatter rings through the hall, as palpable as his relief.

Daenerys, as exceptional as she is with her dragons, is nothing now. There’s absolutely no strength to her body, not compared to him, and there’s no one here to guard her, just the way he’d planned. He doesn’t even need to restrain her, not really, because she’s got nowhere to go.

The Lannister guards Sansa had promised clemency to on behalf of the Rightful King in exchange for giving her a key to free herself from her chains, for overcoming the Mountain, Sansa trusts them enough to keep Daenerys in the Keep’s prison for several days.

“Keep her fed and warm,” Sansa warns, “and if you touch a hair on her head there is not a King in all of Westeros that will grant you leniency.”

Sansa is fearsome, covered in Cersei’s blood as she is, and there is nothing in her tone that suggests she’s lying. They leave Daenerys there for now, while Jon leads Sansa to the Dragonpit where Rhaegal waits.

Jon approaches Rhaegal cautiously, unsure, now, if the dragon will respond favorably when he’s just betrayed and imprisoned its mother. There’s a grumble, deep in its chest; Jon stands in front of Sansa, holding her behind him, determined to protect her, but Rhaegal just turns his head and lowers his shoulder.

The red on Sansa’s hands is bright against the scales, and wet enough still that she slips as she tries to climb up. Jon catches her by the waist and she shudders against him, exhaustion making her eyes close.

“Just a little longer, my love,” he murmurs to her, jostling her slightly. She lifts her head from his shoulder. He presses a quick kiss to her lips. “Come on now, up just a little. We’re going to see Arya.”

“Okay,” she says and pushes herself off from him. “Okay.”

He helps her up, then settles in behind her.

Sansa wakes as Rhaegal lands just north of the Twins, where the party is still heading.

“Where are we?” Sansa murmurs. “It’s cold.”

Jon unclasps his cloak and wraps it solely around Sansa.

“We’ll get you a nice bath, alright?” he says and rubs his hands up her arms. He presses another kiss to her cheek, then her lips, then swings his legs from Rhaegal’s spine. He holds her waist as she props her hands against his shoulders.

He kisses her again when her feet are on solid ground, and then he takes her waist. Rhaegal lifts his head in a heartbroken cry, and then takes off a final time.

Somehow, Jon knows that he’s heading north where he’s going to die; laid to rest with his brothers.

While no one had come to greet him when Rhaegal first landed, Sansa’s presence makes everyone stop. The crowd parts for them as they come through, quiet in their awe.

“What are they . . .?”

“I told everyone that Cersei killed you. I wanted to get Daenerys down there and I wanted no one else to come and no one to question why I wanted to go so quickly.”

“You’ve turned out to be quite the trickster, Jon Snow.”

He pulls her tighter against him. “Only to protect those I love. Turns out I’m quite like my father in that way.”

A smile spreads across her face.

“ _Sansa_?”

“You lied to Arya?” Sansa questions.

Their sister rushes over and takes no heed of Jon what she pushes him away to bring Sansa in for a fierce hug.

“Is this your blood? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“She needs a bath,” Jon interrupts.

“I’m so angry with you,” Arya hisses, and glares at him. She threads her arm through Sansa’s.

Jon can’t help his hand threading into Sansa’s cloak. There are bags under her eyes, and dried blood on her hands, but still she takes a moment to press into him, to let her lips linger on his jaw.

“Oh, when’d this happen, then?” Arya bites out. “Before or after you lied to my fucking face?”

Sansa purses her lips and Jon sighs.

“Would you take me to a tent?” Sansa asks Arya softly. Their younger sister softens considerably.

“Does the Keep still stand?” Arya asks as they start to walk away. “Or did Daenerys burn it?”

“No. We locked her up.”

“Oh? Who dealt with Cersei, then?”

Sansa lifts a bloodied hand. Slowly, a smile spreads across Arya’s face. Jon’s, too. A time for wolves, indeed.

“I did it myself.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who knows? not me. it got a bit dark in the middle though didn't it?

**Author's Note:**

> idek wtf this ending is tbh, but turns out i think the kidnap plot is likely


End file.
